Callaghan entered the civil service at age 17 as a tax officer. By 1936 he had become a full-time trade-union official. After serving as a lieutenant in naval intelligence during World War II, he entered Parliament in 1945, representing the Welsh constituency of Cardiff South. Between 1947 and 1951 Callaghan held junior posts at the Ministry of Transport and at the Admiralty. When Harold Wilson’s Labour government was formed in 1964, Callaghan was named chancellor of the Exchequer. In this capacity he helped secure in 1966–67 international agreement to a system called Special Drawing Rights, which in effect created a new kind of international money. He resigned from the Exchequer in 1967, when he was forced to devalue the pound sterling. He then served as home secretary until 1970. In Wilson’s second government in 1974, Callaghan was named foreign secretary; and in 1976, upon Wilson’s resignation, Callaghan succeeded him as prime minister, largely because the Parliamentary Labour Party considered him the least divisive candidate.

Throughout his ministry (1976–79), Callaghan, a moderate within the Labour Party, tried to stem the increasingly vociferous demands of Britain’s trade unions. He also had to secure the passage of unpopular cuts in government spending early in his ministry. His reassuring public manner came to be criticized as complacency when a series of labour strikes in 1978–79 paralyzed hospital care, refuse collection, and other essential services. In March 1979 his government was brought down by a vote of no confidence passed in the House of Commons, the first such occurrence since 1924. At the subsequent general election, Callaghan’s party was defeated. On October 15, 1980, he resigned as leader of the Labour Party, to be succeeded by Michael Foot. He was created a life peer in 1987 and published an autobiography, Time and Chance, the same year.

Learn More in these related articles:

...II record levels of unemployment and inflation—yet Wilson was able to renegotiate British membership in the EEC, which was confirmed in a referendum in June 1975. However, neither Wilson nor James Callaghan, who succeeded him on April 5, 1976, was able to come to terms with the labour unions, which were as willing to embarrass a Labour government as a Conservative one. Labour’s...

...occur in the United Kingdom, the members of parliament vote only on the fate of the government rather than on a piece of substantive legislation. For example, in March 1979 British Prime Minister James Callaghan was forced to resign after losing a vote of confidence in the House of Commons by a one-vote margin (311 to 310).

British political party whose historic links with trade unions have led it to promote an active role for the state in the creation of economic prosperity and in the provision of social services. In opposition to the Conservative Party, it has been the major democratic socialist party in Britain...

Britannica Web sites

(1912-2005). From April 1976 until May 1979 James Callaghan served as Great Britain’s prime minister. His Labour party never enjoyed a strong majority in Parliament, relying for support on smaller parties to stay in power. After a series of paralyzing labor strikes in 1978-79, his government was brought down by a parliamentary vote of no confidence on March 28, 1979-the first such vote since 1924. In the general election two months later, the Conservative party won, and Callaghan left office.